


How Can You See with All That Light?

by Mira



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-13
Updated: 2011-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-22 14:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mira/pseuds/Mira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Families.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Can You See with All That Light?

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by [the Lady of Asheru](http://lady_of_asheru.livejournal.com).

John heard Sherlock's voice as he came up the stairs to 221B; he sounded a bit . . . sullen, he thought as he pushed open the door. He found Sherlock standing near the windows looking at an elderly woman sitting in John's chair. "Ah," Sherlock said, and John knew him well enough to hear the gratitude in his voice. Very well, he would be the diversion. "My friend, Doctor John Watson. John, my great aunt from America."

"How d'you do," John said, bending to shake her hand. She was as thin as Sherlock in the midst of an especially fascinating case, with the same retroussé nose. Her hair was silvery-grey and cut very short so it fell in fine feathery strands. John smiled at her, wondering if Sherlock's hair would look like hers when he'd reached her age.

"Not lovers yet," she said, her voice firm. "But soon. Yes, Sherlock?"

John felt his mouth drop open and his eyes pop; he tried to compose himself before she could say anything else.

"Yes, Great-Aunt," Sherlock said. He sounded constipated, John thought, and tried not to giggle, though she caught his eye and smiled at him for the first time.

"Where in America?" John asked quickly.

"San Francisco, of course. Nowhere else worth living anymore." She looked at Sherlock. "You enjoyed your visits, as I recall." Something in her voice made John's eyes widen again and he had a sudden vision of a young Sherlock enjoying the many and varied pleasures of San Francisco.

"Exactly what you're thinking, Doctor Watson."

"John, please."

"You may call me Anthea."

"Anth --" he began, startled, and then shut up. "Lovely name. Greek, isn't it?"

"It means _flowery_ ," she said disapprovingly. "A sobriquet I have tried hard not to live up to." She pronounced _sobriquet_ in French so it took John a moment to catch her meaning. Before he had, she said, "Sherlock, I will take you and your partner out to dinner. Claridge's. I understand they have three stars now." She and Sherlock stared at each other. "Dress, Sherlock." He left immediately; John was impressed. Then he realized she was now staring at him. "Do you have a nice suit, John?"

"Um, I have _a_ suit, ma'am."

"Anthea, or perhaps Great-Aunt Anthea would be more accurate, and please change into it. Needs must when the devil drives."

"Uh, yes, ma'am. Great-Aunt Anthea." He left as quickly as Sherlock, sticking his head into Sherlock's room. "Wow," he whispered. Sherlock looked unusually wide eyed as he nodded agreement. Feeling emboldened by Anthea's words, John continued into Sherlock's room, something he rarely did. He lightly touched Sherlock's elbow and whispered, "Is she right?" His heart raced and he felt light-headed as he watched Sherlock's face, those pale eyes flashing in the late afternoon light. "Sherlock?"

Minutes, no, hours went by before Sherlock said softly, "That rather depends on you, John. What do you want?"

John felt a ridiculous smile spread across his face. "You're not an idiot, are you?" he asked Sherlock as he bullied his way into Sherlock's arms. "You must know the answer. Auntie Anthea does."

"She's insufferable," Sherlock said a bit too loudly just before John hushed him with the kiss that had hidden in him for months. He sighed into Sherlock's mouth and they shifted until they fit as closely as two such different men could. Closer even, as John pulled Sherlock to him, sliding his hands beneath the beautiful purple shirt so he could feel the man beneath its elegance. John opened his mouth and felt Sherlock's tongue against his, hot and exciting. He pushed harder, knowing he would always have to push Sherlock, shoving his thigh between Sherlock's, and caught his breath at the feel of Sherlock's arousal.

"What I want to do to you," John breathed, pulling his head back enough to see Sherlock flushed with excitement -- with desire for him, John thought and knew he was smiling even harder.

"Sherlock!" Great-Aunt Anthea called sharply from the front room. "Now is not the time for your epiphany!"

John giggled as Sherlock dropped his head back to exhale in frustration. "Yes, Great-Aunt," he said, scowling.

"Change," John told him. "I'll put on my best suit --"

"Only suit."

"Yes, my best and only suit, we'll have dinner at this fancy three-star place, we'll get your aunt settled into her hotel --"

"A flat in Knightsbridge."

"Into her no-doubt very exclusive flat in very exclusive Knightsbridge, and then we'll come home and then --" John stopped abruptly. "And then what, Sherlock? What do you want?" He hesitated before asking quickly, before Sherlock could answer, "What can you give me?"

Sherlock stared at him, brow creased, for a long minute. "I want -- I would like whatever you can give me," he finally said, sounding to John's ears sad. "You must know I'll give you anything I can."

John hugged him fiercely. "I want everything you have," he finally said, blinking rapidly against the silk of that shirt. "You hear me, Sherlock? Everything."

He felt Sherlock kiss the top of his head and tighten his arms around John's shoulders. "Then you shall have everything I am: the freak that Donovan sees, the druggie Lestrade fears, the continual worry to my brother, the only consulting detective in the world -- all shall be yours."

John looked up at him, then seized Sherlock's face with both hands, holding his gaze. "The best and wisest man I have ever had the privilege to know," he said. They stared at each other until Sherlock's crooked smile finally unfurled

"I will try, John," he said. John leaned up to kiss him again, this time a casual kiss, one that said they had time for more, for many more. He left one hand gently cupped against Sherlock's face for a moment as he stepped away, staring deeply into Sherlock's eyes. All right, he told himself; you're in for it now.

"Gentlemen," Anthea said in her thin American voice. "Let us be off. I have stories to tell you, young John. You should know that Sherlock is my favorite relative, after my dear brother, of course, but he is long dead and gone. I will be watching."

"Yes, ma'am," John said, unwillingly releasing Sherlock and turning to her.

"You do look familiar," she said, cocking her head in a way John recognized as Sherlock's. "A bit of my father in you, I think. The sandy blond hair I remember from when I was a young girl, and the sad eyes. I think he was sad for Galloway, for he never lost the way of speaking of his youth."

"My family's from Galloway, too," he said, wondering how to maneuver past her without tipping her over. She was tall and thin and, he realized, frail, keeping one hand on the wall outside Sherlock's room.

"I shouldn't wonder if we aren't distantly related. Although Watson is the fourth most common name in Britain."

"I beg your pardon?" He stopped trying to sidle past her.

"Yes, my father was a Watson, so I am as well, though I took my late husband's name." She wrinkled her nose. "Horrible tradition, taking one's husband's name. Particularly if you are named _Anthea_."

"You're a Watson?" he asked again feeling slow.

"Yes, John," she snapped, "just as I said. Now get along."

"So is Sherlock a Watson?"

She studied him as if he were a mildly interesting fossil. "Sherlock's maternal grandfather, my father's youngest brother, was a Watson," she said. "I'm unsure whether that makes Sherlock a Watson."

He finally slid past her and to the stairs where he turned, first to look at Sherlock again and feel that smile on his face as he watched his dear friend watch him, and then to look at Anthea. "Um, what is your surname now?"

"Dear god, it's _Anderson_. Yes, Anthea Anderson." She shook her head. "Perhaps I shall change it back so I can live in eternity under my own name. Highgate Cemetery," she said firmly to Sherlock. "Don't let that brother of yours get any other idea."

"Yes, Great-Aunt," Sherlock said. He looked pleased at permission to thwart Mycroft, John thought.

She nodded. "I want my dinner, and then my bed," she announced, "and you two are hindering not helping. Off with you both."

John sprinted up the stairs. What an evening to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Auntie Mame.
> 
> [To Anthea, Who May Command Him Anything](http://www.bartleby.com/101/266.html), by Robert Herrick
> 
>  _Or bid me love, and I will give  
>  A loving heart to thee.  
> _
> 
>  _A heart as soft, a heart as kind,  
>  A heart as sound and free  
> As in the whole world thou canst find,  
> That heart I'll give to thee._


End file.
